Leonine
by shadeshark
Summary: PG for being Hellsing dark. Not exactly slash. . . more like adoption. AA.
1. No Footholds

Poor Anderson. I really love him like I love buttercups and chocolate, but you can't always tell from my writing.  
  
Anderson and his friendly neighborhood nemesis belong to Kouta Hirano.  
  
~*~  
  
I wait, aware of the seconds going by.  
  
I feel them pass with my heartbeat. Time is flowing around me, moving on. I sit, patient. He's not hunting out there. I don't sense anything prowling London. That means he's watching this apartment. Perhaps he's on a rooftop halfway across the city. Perhaps he's on the street under the window. Perhaps he's outside the door.  
  
There's a phone halfway across the room. I've been watching it since sundown.  
  
I've bathed, brushed my teeth, said my prayers. . . polished my swords and cried out to my God. He is as silent as he's been since just before I first gave in.  
  
My God, my God. . .  
  
The small cell phone in my coat jangles its calling melody. I can't decide if I'm pleased or not that Maxwell finally has something to say. He can't be of any help now. I get up, cross the room. "Yes?" And I can't decide what I'm feeling. . . "Oh."  
  
Of course it's him.  
  
"How did you get this number?" And of course he's even more evasive than usual. "No. No. I'm in my apartment." So he has been hunting after all. . . and I've lost my ability to sense him. I want to hang up. I have done the unforgivable. . .  
  
But what is left?  
  
"Yes." I hang up before I have to invite him. I have to claim victory where I can. I cross the room, open the door to the back porch. Naturally, he knocks at my apartment door. I cross, open it, and step back. I could be surprised; I could have lost my footing; I could be trying to compensate for a visual problem. Not an invitation, oh no. He steps inside. The door closes softly. I hear the chain. I am too busy trying to see the future to notice.  
  
No, he's not here to kill me. . . he isn't smirking, so he's not after my blood. . . and it's not my body, either. Ah. One of those nights where he just comes to mess with my mind. Perhaps I'm hoping he'll injure himself in the wreckage.  
  
"You look tired." I don't respond. Actually, I don't. I look drained, half-dead, but not weary. Just done. I probably look worse than I did where Incognito left me. Oh, I had dreams when I saw them fighting. I would finish off the survivor of their fight-  
  
And I sought him out and attacked in a righteous frenzy and all I could smell was the blood on my sword.  
  
Alucard removes his hat. The gloves stay on, but the hat falls on a chair. His hair is untidy without it. I can't decide if that's an affectation or not. He's watching me with that odd look. It takes me back to the last time I let him touch me. It's what he thinks is love.  
  
I feel a small, miserable smile. He sees it, reads it accurately. The glasses come down, fold, and are placed on the brim of the hat.  
  
"No, I'm not giving in."  
  
He nods. He understands, damn it, he understands in his own skewed way. One gloved hand is on my shoulder. It stirs a faint memory. That gives me a sense of unease; I pry for it, hoping that I have not forgotten a time I failed to fight him. He steps in close, just that smallest bit taller. His clothes smell of polished wood, rain, and oh so slightly of gunsmoke. I stand perfectly still, noticing that I'm not as afraid as usual.  
  
That slight sting on the side of my neck, just under the edge of my jaw. Then he pulls back and looks at me.  
  
"Trade me places," he insists.  
  
"My perspective is getting dull." I put my fingertips in the center of his chest and give a slight push. He sways the tiniest bit to take the pressure and does not move. I know how quickly this is going to accelerate. I reach prematurely for one sword. The memory recedes as I move. I pause, trying to recall it.  
  
He meets my eyes and tips his head back, baring his neck, oblivious to my distraction. "Show me anyway."  
  
It will take more than usual for me to be able to see through his eyes. I tell him that, in what I wish was a challenge: "I'd rather it was you bleeding."  
  
He looks sad, but then I see the shine in his eyes, the look close to victory. I wonder to myself if I'm ever going to leave England alive. I see it already in my mind's eye, measuring the amount of shell casings it will take piled up before I am inert on the floor.  
  
With that image in my mind, I hardly feel it as he snaps open the top three buttons of my shirt, steps in, and cuts a shallow graze down my breastbone with one nail. He's trying to bleed the most possible without getting vampire spit in my bloodstream, and I feel the faintest twinge of appreciation. Skin bumps my chest, and then his mouth opens just beneath the cut. I feel my mind open and I feel him staring in.  
  
Seconds tick by. I'm starting to drift, and it is bliss. I lift my hand, feel hair, pull his head up. I bite, careful not to catch more than the thinnest fold of skin. I feel the faintest cold as he opens a new cut, the old one away from his reach. I taste the slightest amount of blood, tease more from the cut with a slight chewing motion.  
  
And suddenly I am not Anderson. I am old, I am unbound by the Church and by the laws that someone else held so dear. I am powerful. I taste blood, human, thick, and rich; there is a pulse under my fingers. I am being so careful with my grip to keep from hurting him. And with me is another being, a creature that is sunk as deeply into the relief of bloodlust as I am. We are drifting, relaxed. He is beyond death and I am far beyond life. The only thing better would be action, we both know, but we are too closely bound to fight each other. Peace is costing us both. And it's perfect. I'm so strong!  
  
"Now. No, no-let go."  
  
I whimper. I don't want to go back yet. This was too short. I don't want to be rejected by my faith-I don't want to remember thinking I am beloved of God-I'm remembering too much just thinking of it and oh it hurts.  
  
"Anderson. Father!"  
  
My teeth jerk apart, and I spit reflexively. Cold fluid mixed with saliva spatters down Alucard's sleeve. I close my eyes against it, starting to lean away. Alucard's hand stays on my shoulder in heavy sympathy for a moment. I feel the stinging ease as the scrape down my chest closes. He ducks his head again, cleaning away a smear of blood from the place the cut was positioned.  
  
He must have found me after I challenged that freakish white thing. (Eli, eli. . .) He must have given me the barest amount of his blood to keep me from dying. And I will never stop needing more until I have died. Damn him. I thought it was a miracle when I awoke, thought that the foreign vampire had not recognised me and had left me barely alive. Thought that God had laid his hand over me.  
  
Alucard's white glove on my shoulder tightens slightly to retrieve my attention. He puts his other hand on my other shoulder, a commonplace gesture that couldn't hurt more. I open my mouth to tell him to kill me. He's sensed my mood. He draws breath to speak, lets it out, breathes again and it almost gives the illusion that I'm with someone alive. I bury my head in my hands before he ruins it.  
  
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  
  
"Anderson." He doesn't deepen the embrace like he did once. "Alexander. Look at me."  
  
I cannot feel grace. I will not see death and red eyes. I am still.  
  
"Alexander." He bumps his forehead against mine, not about to let me rest. I know I have to face him eventually, so I drop my hands.  
  
There is no mockery on his face to trigger the old pattern: my sword through his face. The sense of victory has faded from his eyes. There is the look of a father watching his child struggle. I bow my head, sparing myself from having to watch it, choking in sudden mourning for what I lost.  
  
And the thing I had been trying to remember comes to me. My mind takes me to when I was assisting a missionary. I remember a lion's pride had killed a zebra colt. I remember driving out and watching the lions tear its corpse apart. And when I drove back, I saw a young male lying in the grass. Even for a lion he looked absorbed. He was grooming something with care and consideration. It was furry, I saw as I drove, and I looked over to see if there was a cub between his paws.  
  
He was holding the zebra's disembodied head, carefully putting its fur flat.  
  
There is that same gentleness in Alucard's touch as he slowly takes the tears from my face.  
  
"You can have my blood. But you have to understand--"  
  
"I know the cost. My blood." I feel the faintest hint of shame that I am speaking so roughly to his solicitude. Damn him, damn him. Oh, damn me while I'm at it.  
  
But he's doing that already. If he leaves me without his blood I will have nowhere to go at all.  
  
"Just tell me." He moves his hands to cup my face. His eyes close, and he holds his head against mine. I could believe he is sympathetic, I could believe he loves me, and oh how I want to.  
  
My God, my God. . . I turn my face towards his a little more to help kill whatever sound might come from my throat. His skin is perfect, but chill against mine. I try to pull what comfort I can from him without replying, because my voice is getting far too close to a sob. And I can't block his insistence. The question wraps my mind and settles into my heart, sinking into the pit of my stomach.  
  
"What do you choose?" 


	2. Stalk

I swear I don't know where this came from.  
  
Alucard, Anderson, and a goodly portion of my soul belong to Kouta Hirano.  
  
Second chapter, from the beginning of the story in Alucard's POV. Make sense? Er, I didn't think so.  
  
Chocolate and pretty flowers to everyone who's reviewed! After all, I don't know what impact my stories have or lack unless you tell me. Non- reviewers will be tackled, tied up, and forced to read this over and over and over again until they find something to say. No wait. I mean, non- reviewers will be given cookies for just dropping by to see what this is.  
  
*~*  
  
It's not like me to choose another vampire's leftovers. But he's of a very rare breed. I couldn't let him become dust before I knew him better.  
  
Is there anything I don't know about him now?  
  
And how could he not notice? I've only gone to that effort with Integra. . . what do I need to do, have him write up a quiz about himself so he can realize what a devoted student I am?  
  
Student? Well, scientist. I've learned so much from my pet experiment. After all, he and my master are quite similar: strong in their faith, devoted and principled, fanatic in their drives to complete their missions. I understand Integra far more clearly now that I've dissected him.  
  
I hang up the pay phone and move. I am outside his door a moment later. I wish I could tell Integra about this struggle, but she still can't understand.  
  
I want her to know.  
  
Perhaps I could move ahead of her through her nightly routine, have everything prepared just a breath in advance, show her how familiar I am with who she is.  
  
I hear him breathing inside. I knock. He opens the door. His green eyes aren't tired. They look defeated, done. I turn away, trying not to bring to mind how he looked when he was fighting me. And I also hide a flash of fury that would only send him deep into himself. I don't want to have to do this to Integra! There must be another way.  
  
I can't think about it now. The wreck that I have caused needs me.  
  
I wish I didn't feel this. . . pity. I don't want to pity him. I admired him too much as an enemy and I admire him too much now, when he's so resistant to falling to his knees and he needs so much to break and have done with it.  
  
I was curious. . . if I were to let harm overtake my master to the point where she couldn't control me, and then give her the smallest bit of my blood-not enough to make her my ghoul, but enough to make her want more- would that draw her to me? I can't do that to my master, but this human was so like her that he could show me.  
  
Now I know. Yes, but no. There is no way that I could do this to her. Doing it to my enemy is bad enough. If I give Anderson too much more of my blood, he'll be my ghoul. And he still won't ask me for it. I've gotten more fond of him for that. I appreciate fighters. I contemplate the little dream that's come to me recently. He'd make the perfect counterpart to Seras, the best of foils to Integra. Oh, and imagine what hysterics the Vatican would have. . .  
  
I can't smell his fear in the air as I prepare. Just despair. And he gives an odd little smile that actually affects me. If he'd just-  
  
"No. I'm not giving in."  
  
His voice is flat to me. I step in, place a small, pinching bite far from the vein. He doesn't move, doesn't respond, and it causes a twinge of fear that somehow I just finished off the remainders of his sanity. I step back immediately.  
  
"Trade me places." I've done this much to him; I may as well give him a rest. I'll be the living one sensing my mortality. He can be the strong one.  
  
"My perspective is getting dull," he answers flatly.  
  
Dull? Well, dead is the word I would use. But the only thing that comes to mind is a challenge. "Show me anyway."  
  
"I'd rather it was you bleeding." And I can sense need radiating from the cold place in his mind I've created, the place where there used to be hate. He's speaking pure truth. I open his shirt quickly while he's still in almost a trance. I part the skin. And blood flows. I feel him relax. When he finally chooses to take my blood, he remembers my warning against drawing too much. And I can pull him in, take over his fears and let him share my power.  
  
He doesn't want to stop. I feel something in the fabric of his mind start to tear as I try to stop him. And then I say the right word and he recalls his control, restores his distance. I keep my hands on him, as though trying to hold him together. I could almost laugh at what he's become, if I hadn't taken him along his descent. I hold him instead, grateful for the warmth of his blood in my body, hoping that I'm helping him to surrender rather than break.  
  
He's drifting now, collecting himself after his plunge into my mind. His fingers absently find the ends of my mane, flicking them annoyingly against my neck. I say his name, trying to recall him, tugging my hair away with a thought.  
  
"You can have my blood," I promise carefully. It is the first time I have offered to keep him. He probably guessed I would. He knows I care for what is mine. "But you have to understand--"  
  
"I know the cost. My blood." His eyes are murky with grief.  
  
I hush him softly, barely realizing I'm holding our heads together. "What do you choose?"  
  
While I wait to see if he's finally going to follow me over the edge, I wonder how I thought Integra might ever depend on me this much. Hatred made him incautious.  
  
I wrap him in a careful embrace as I realize: perhaps I didn't really need to do this. Perhaps all that I need is to create the illusion that she depends on me. I wonder how I can weave this idea into the dance between myself and my master.  
  
A faint sound recalls my attention. I tilt my head back, watching. He can't reply yet. I know the answer is coming. Muscles are clenched all the way up his back, holding his shoulders rigid. His face is a grimace telling of too much pain to be withheld for long.  
  
I'm patient. I'll wait.  
  
After all, I've been waiting all Integra's life for her answer. 


	3. Alternate Ending 1

All disclaimers still apply. Hellsing, not mine; this chapter is my work, done without permission.  
  
Yes, it's a wishy-washy ending, a few decades after I actually posted the fic (which could stand alone, actually,) where I couldn't decide which way to go. This would be the more somber ending. . .  
  
..  
  
I sat on the polished wood, cross-legged, examining the thing I'd found hidden away among Alucard's weapons.  
  
The surface under me moved. I glanced down. "About time."  
  
A glove rested on the case's edge, spider-like. Alucard was deciding how to handle this. He finally lifted the coffin lid steadily and placed it crosswise, with me in the center so that I wouldn't fall. My feet dangled into his coffin.  
  
"What in heaven's name is this?" I extended the skull carelessly in one hand.  
  
"Pardon me." He rescued the token possessively.  
  
"If you don't mind. . ."I was feeling as polite as he. I snatched the skull back. "Alucard, are you going to degenerate into a black nailed, black lipped, weepy American vampire on me?" I turned the skull over in my hands. The light caught many thin patches in the dome where the bone had broken away and rehealed.  
  
"It's a reminder." Alucard's eyes were shaded by his glasses. I very nearly pulled them down to look for eyeliner. He took the skull back, cradling it in both hands. I decided to take the more subtle tack.  
  
"I can't decide if it's human or vampire," I pondered. "Those canines could be either. How long have you had it?"  
  
"A year, perhaps." He moved to sitting by me on the edge of the coffin, smiling at me with his typical mockery. Oh, good.  
  
"Don't let Seras see it," I ordered. "You might spread the idea, and then I'll never be able to keep a maid."  
  
"Of course not." His reply sounded mechanical. His gaze was fixed on me. I was almost certain he wasn't wearing mascara. What a relief. He was wondering what I was thinking.  
  
"You take that little trophy seriously, don't you?" I asked before he got curious enough to test his boundaries.  
  
"It's not a trophy, master. It's a reminder not to fail again." He rested his chin on the skull's dome. His expression was blank. I read sorrow in his pose.  
  
"That could be useful," I said sharply. "You're becoming careless, Alucard. I expect perfection of you. It is why you are here."  
  
"Rest assured, master. . . I do not ever want to repeat my mistake." He was watching me with that unreadable look. He stood, stepping out of the coffin, and moved around me to place the odd skull at its head. I stood, echoing his movement. I had never seen this mood before. I moved away, prepared to outwait it. I paused at the door, looking back, but he had already retreated from my curiosity.  
  
.. 


	4. Alternate Ending 2

This would be the alternate ending that was more fun to write. . . I think I needed to after the creepiness of the first two chapters. Eek!  
  
Hellsing isn't mine; nobody said "you have permission to go write Hellfic!" and I make no money off this.

..  
  
Alucard leaned back against the wall and listened to Seras cleaning her Halconnen in the next room. Before him, a rangy shape paced and ranted. That striking accent was pouring over him in a steady wave. In the past, Alucard had always been that tiniest bit too busy waiting for swords to come his way to appreciate it. He momentarily tuned back in.  
  
"I said it would be a good idea to move carefully," Anderson was saying. "I could have told you that 'don't finish all of that, we haven't let Walter know we've increased the blood ration. Oh, and I don't want you killing him' wasn't the way to inform a member of the fairer sex. How were you intending to tell Integra? Were you intending to launch me at her with a catapult?" He paused to direct an intense glare at Alucard.  
  
"Go on," Alucard said, ready to just listen to the rise and fall of his voice again and disregard his words. He was mentally trying to decide if the former priest should still have glasses or not. He was just used to seeing the man wearing them, he supposed. Alexander obliged, his white coat flaring about him as he paced. Alucard cocked his head. The clicking sounds coming through the wall informed him that Seras was re-assembling the Halconnen. He might have to remind her of Integra's rule of no artillery near the house's foundations.  
  
"Are you listening to me?" Anderson's ire very nearly pushed his words into incomprehensibility.  
  
"Of course," Alucard said, standing. "Go on."  
  
The door swung open just as Anderson was starting to melodiously oblige. Seras stepped in. She was only holding her pistol. She holstered it, staring at the two of them. "Master, have you gone mad?"  
  
Anderson muttered something about the innate tendency of chaotic creatures to insanity.  
  
"Isn't he perfect?" Alucard beamed.  
  
"I'm telling Integra." Seras slammed the door behind her. Alucard could hear her standing outside in the hall for a moment before she slammed back in, looking much less like a childish vampire and more like a moody teenaged one. Seras did not deal with surprises well, he reflected. He supposed it was because most of them tried to kill her.  
  
"Couldn't waste a perfectly good virgin," he offered. He crossed to Anderson, gripping his chin and turning his head. "Look at his eyes. Isn't that odd? I was expecting them to go red, but instead they're yellow." Anderson reflexively requested a mirror. The two of them ignored him.  
  
"Have you told Integra?"  
  
"Of course not," Alucard said, letting go of Anderson's chin and letting his hand rest on his shoulder instead. "I want the Vatican's search party to hit London a few times first."  
  
"You're just going to keep him in the basement?" Seras stepped a little closer. "I don't think you can do it. He paces too much."  
  
"Now if I had access to a forge, and perhaps a few long pieces of metal, oo, I'd show you. . ." Anderson muttered, shifting from foot to foot.  
  
"I do like his eyes." Seras tried a remotely friendly overture. "They're not green-yellow. More amber. Some of the great cats have eyes like that."  
  
". . . oh, aye! Not an abomination -- but an experiment in zoology! That will go over well with Maxwell."  
  
"Is he all right?" Seras whispered as the tall man crossed the room again, demanding what Alucard's coffin was looking at.  
  
"Shock," explained Alucard in an aside. "You had the same general reaction, but you were much more placid than this."  
  
Seras shook her head, leaning against the wall by Alucard. "Tell me when you introduce your lion-eyed friend to Integra. Ideally, I should be so far away she'll forget I exist."  
  
..  
  
And yes, of course there's another alternate ending, but I forgot it.  
  
No. Really.

Which is, in retrospect, just as well.

Thanks for reading.


End file.
